Google University on YouTube at Starbucks

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A Doctor in Philosophy suggests that for-profit institutions like Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles should offer their own Universities to students. Google University? Dr. James D. Carmine writes an open letter to Google urging them to start an Online university that will be of great help to students everywhere. Here are some excerpts of his letter:

* It makes sense that for-profit institutions like Google, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles or even Starbucks, begin to consider applying for university accreditation, and offering degrees of their own. Clearly, well-run for-profits are vastly more economically efficient than any non-profit college or university. The efficiency is a consequence of following the basic economic principle that an informed consumer will always purchase the best value for the least money. I, like most parents, would happily send my children to Google University if I knew they would learn more there than at a higher priced university. (...)
* Google could escape the tenure trap by not hiring any faculty at all. Instead of hiring the faculty themselves, institutions like Google could simply purchase a vast library of taped, high quality, lectures given by academic super stars or other top performing teachers who are willing to sell series of their lectures (perhaps even receiving residuals if they really rock!). These professors would operate as free agents in a digital world of Professors Without Borders. (...)
* Google University (...) would not only reduce the cost of education to students, the competition between professors to produce the best lectures would create vastly superior lectures, and the competition between for-profit institutions in order to attract students would produce vastly better outcomes for students, and therefore would even help American corporations, like Google itself, who need highly competent employees.

Google for example has all the tools necessary to have a online presence for academics, they have YouTube to show the lectures of the professors, show experiments and other demonstrations. Google already has various free tools for students GMail, SMS Text, Blogger tool, Scholar (research papers), Picasa album (Pictures), YouTube (Videos). Plus they can have Google Groups, Google Talk to interact with fellow students or teachers. Google Documents to write their papers online. All these will make the teaching job much more efficient and a great interaction between the teacher and the student.

I think it is possible, any of the four companies Google, Amazon, Starbucks, have the resources and capacity to do this and Barnes and Nobles already have online courses available for free at their online book stores. Yahoo, Microsoft are not mentioned here, they also have the resources. It will be possible one day, then we can expect high quality, consistent education through out the world.

What do you think, is Google University a possibility?